Ethnic groups in Metro Detroit
Steve Babson, author of Working Detroit: The Making of a Union Town, wrote that "native" whites dominated these outlying areas.
[7] Today, Detroit has an estimated 60,000 Armenians, who are mostly gathered in Dearborn, West Bloomfield, Farmington Hills, Southfield, and Livonia.
In 2004 Metro Detroit had one of the largest settlements of Middle Eastern people, including Arabs and Assyrians, in the United States.
[9] Dearborn has a sizeable Arab community, with many Assyrian, and Lebanese who immigrated for jobs in the auto industry in the 1920s along with more recent Yemenis and Iraqis.
The Henry Ford $5 per day salary and wages in the auto industry caused Macedonian immigration to increase.
[19] According to Babson, during the 1920s men "were the unquestioned authority and usually the sole breadwinner among adult members" of Bulgarian families, especially Macedonian ones, and that wives of first generation immigrants were only able to socialize in the house, marketplace, and church.
The Delray-Springwells area served as the "Little Hungary" of Detroit and Michigan's Hungarian culture was centered in that community.
[28] A group of Dutch people arrived in Detroit after Henry Ford's $5 per day wage announcement.
Jan Reef, a Dutch immigrant to Detroit, developed a gear process utilized by early automakers.
[32] The first Finns to move to Detroit arrived to manufacture automobile bodies for the Ford Motor Company.
Many Finns located in the copper country in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan moved down to Detroit after Henry Ford announced his $5 per day wage.
The state of Michigan sent representatives to New York and Germany, including Bavaria, to attract German workers during the middle of the 1800s.
[37] In the early 20th century, the Yugoslav American Independent Club tried to unite the Croatian, Serbian, and Slovenian groups in Detroit.
According to Sarah Swider, a sociologist from Wayne State University who specializes in gender issues, labor relations, and immigration from Asia, the increase in the Asian population in the Detroit area is due to Asian Americans leaving traditional immigration gateway cities such as Los Angeles, New York City, and Washington DC, and settling in areas with high-tech job opportunities and lower costs of living.
Kurt Metzger and Jason Booza, authors of "Asians in the United States, Michigan and Metropolitan Detroit", that "The distribution of Asians in the tri-county resembles a crescent shape that stretches from western Sterling Heights, on the east, to Canton Township (on the west) with pockets in Detroit, Hamtramck, Warren and Inkster".
[44] As of 2002, most Asians in the tri-county area, particularly ethnic Indians, Japanese, and Chinese, live in newer, wealthier suburbs mostly populated by white people.
As of that year, many smaller Asian populations such as Bangladeshi, Vietnamese, and Lao people settle in different areas.
"[47] Charles Kaufman, the judge, gave probation and fines to the two men who pleaded guilty to Chin's murder.
[48] Zia wrote that the sentences given to the killers made Asian Americans believe that the community perceived them as having little worth.
Zia wrote that Asians in Metro Detroit reacted by no longer taken disrespect towards their community that they had previously endured.
As of that year there were 16,829 ethnic Chinese, concentrated mainly in Troy, Rochester Hills, and Canton Township.
As of that year, within an area stretching from Sterling Heights to Canton Township in the shape of a crescent, most of the ethnic Japanese lived in the center.
As of 2002 the largest populations of ethnic Japanese people were located in Novi and West Bloomfield Township.
[59] By 2001, many Bangladeshi Americans had moved from New York City, particularly Astoria, Queens, to the Hamtramck and the east side of Detroit.
[52] In 2002 over 80% of the Bangladeshi population within Wayne, Oakland, and Macomb counties lived in Hamtramck and some surrounding neighborhoods in Detroit.
"[63] DPS's sole Bangladeshi teacher certified in English as a second language teaches at Davison Elementary-Middle School.
Sterling Heights and Warren had larger populations and there was a smaller number of Vietnamese in Southwest Detroit.
[68] As of 2007, most Hmong people in the State of Michigan live in northeastern Detroit, but they have been increasingly moving to Pontiac and Warren.
54.3% of Latinos in Oakland County of age 25 and older completed higher education, the highest such percentage in the tri-county area.
The community of Mexicantown, originally known as "La Bagley", was established to provide Mexican-oriented goods and services.
